Pope No. 266 · 2013 — 2025
François
«Miserando atque eligendo»
Looking at him with mercy, he chose him
01Biography
Birth name
Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Birth
1936-12-17 · Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Death
2025-04-21 · Vatican, Vatican
Nationality
Argentina Argentina
Age at election
76 years old
Election
Elected at the conclave
Francis took the helm of the Church in 2013 amidst a profound crisis: pedophilia scandals, the Vatileaks affair, and the unprecedented resignation of Benedict XVI. The world was experiencing a rise in populism, a major migration crisis in Europe, and an acceleration of environmental challenges. The Church also had to contend with increasing secularization in the West and expansion in Africa and Asia.
🥇
First Jesuit Pope | First Latin American Pope | First Pope from the Southern Hemisphere
02Pontificate
12.1 yearsDuration
898Canonized Saints
142Cardinals created
4Encyclicals
- Reform of the Roman Curia (Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, 2022)
- Opening of the Synod on Synodality (2021–2024)
- Reform of the finances of the Vatican and the Institute for Religious Works
- Limitation of the Tridentine Rite (Traditionis custodes, 2021)
- Opening up governance roles to women in the Curia
03Chronology
2013
Elected first Jesuit pope and first Latin American on March 13, 2013 in the fifth round of voting.
2015
Publishes Laudato Si', the first papal encyclical entirely devoted to ecology, which was hailed worldwide.
2015
Restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, with the decisive mediation of the Vatican.
2019
Signing of the Abu Dhabi Declaration on Human Brotherhood with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar.
2022
Apostolic journey to Canada with official apologies to Indigenous peoples for abuses committed in Catholic residential schools.
2025
He died on April 21, 2025 in the Vatican at the age of 88, after a pontificate of more than 12 years.
04Encyclicals
Lumen Fidei
2013
Doctrinal
On the Christian faith as the light that illuminates all human existence, an encyclical largely written by Benedict XVI.
Laudato Si''
2015
Ecological
An urgent call for ecological conversion and the safeguarding of our common home in the face of the global environmental crisis.
Laudate Deum
2023
Ecological
Renewed call for concrete climate action, noting the inadequacy of global responses since Laudato Si'.
Dilexit nos
2024
Doctrinal
Meditation on the love of the Heart of Jesus Christ as the source of Christian life and the mission of the Church.
05Quotes
Who am I to judge?
A poor church for the poor.
06Legacy
Francis has profoundly refocused the Church on mercy, the peripheries, and the poor, inspiring a more synodal and collegial ecclesiology. Laudato Si' has become a global reference document on integral ecology, far beyond Catholic borders. His reform of the Curia and his emphasis on pastoral conversion will continue to influence the Church for decades to come.
✦ Did you know?
Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first Jesuit pope in history and the first from the American continent, choosing the name Francis in homage to Saint Francis of Assisi, a total symbolic break with the tradition of papal names.
◈ Anecdote
Before his election, Bergoglio lived in a modest apartment in Buenos Aires, cooked his own meals and took the bus to get around, refusing the privileges associated with his position as archbishop — a simplicity he maintained at the Vatican by refusing the papal apartment.
07Related articles (80)
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- Saint Francis of Assisi, the transfigured poor man
- The Pilgrim's Return: Leo XIV, the Argentine Land, and the Memory of Saint Francis Solano
- Leo XIV and the eight hundredth sigh of Saint Francis: the papacy to the rhythm of the Poverello
- The Society of Saint Pius X and the twilight of Francis' concessions
- The prayer that reflects who we are: the "Our Father" as a school of humanity according to Pope Francis
- Walk to the end with Saint John Francis Regis
- One year already: Francis, the living memory of a pontificate and the path that Leo XIV continues to forge
- One year after Francis: Ambongo and the irreversibility of a Church on the move
- A year without Francis: Leo XIV and the burning legacy of a pope of the peripheries
- Assisi, Illinois: When Catholic America Rises Up for Francis
- Saint Francis of Paola, the beggar of God who walked on the sea
- «Thank you, Francis»: when the Church in France gives thanks to a prophetic pope
- When America prays for Francis: an anniversary between Easter mourning and gratitude
- Françoise Romaine, wife and saint
- Growing up: the dizzying price of universality according to François Cheng
- Seated under the sign of the saints: universal emotion before the relics of Saint Francis
- Pope Leo XIV is preparing to make history in Assisi to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis
- Saint Francis de Sales: to love in order to transform
- A whole year to walk in the footsteps of Saint Francis: everything you need to know about the 2026-2027 Jubilee
- This prayer of the Pope awakens the spirit of Francis of Assisi
- Francis Xavier, apostle to the ends of the earth
- Leo XIV at the Vatican: Francis's legacy and the silent revolution of equality
- Leo XIV in Assisi: the Pope's prayer at the tomb of Saint Francis
- Saint Francis of Assisi: a model of ecology and evangelical simplicity
- Ten years after Amoris Laetitia: when the Church chose to listen to families before speaking
- When the altar speaks of the State: greed, the enemy of the mission
- A basilica for the little way: what Pasay is asking of Rome
- Who is my neighbor? (Luke 10:25-37)
- When the stone entrusts its guardian to the earth: the words of a transfer
- Amoris Laetitia ten years later: Rome listens before concluding
- Massachusetts: When the state opens the archives that the Church didn't dare reopen
- The vineyard of the Lord of the universe is the house of Israel (Isaiah 5:1-7)
- Divorced and remarried: when Leo XIV asked the Church to examine what mercy had become
- Two miters under the sirens: when Ukraine receives two shepherds for its wounded sheep
- Returning to our roots: Leo XIV's message to the Lutherans and the challenge of 2030
- Newark, Friday evening: when the flags enter the cathedral
- After Tigray, the Central African Republic: when the Pope's words seek out forgotten wounds
- Celebrating the guardian angels, a discreet presence
- When the Spirit becomes canon: the synod put to the test of law
- Ethiopia: The peace of Pretoria is broken, and the Church has no right to remain silent.
- When the Church dispenses with Mass to protect the threshold: the bishops' words on Haiti
- Leo XIV in South America: the missionary pope returns to where it all began
- Why God awaits our prayer to save the world
- Gregory the Great and the peace that knocks at closed doors
- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the little way to God
- Your peace will rest upon him (Luke 10:1-12)
- System or sin: what the word rejected by Leo XIV says about us
- Before the Europe of treaties, the peace of the baptized
- Watering what has been sown: the words of a gardener after the storm of grace
- Zuppi in Moscow: Peace begins with a name and a returned child
- Saint Jerome gives the Bible in Latin to the world
- Meet Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels
- In Metz, an American pope placed Europe in the hands of its own saint.
- In Metz, Leo XIV denounced the lies of the nations: what the Bible says about the given word
- The altar of bronze and recast iron: when Metz becomes a sacrament of peace
- Europe's mother tongue: in Metz, Leo XIV reconnects with the monks who learned in Rome to pray in French
- In Metz, the Pope melted down the cannons to build an altar of peace
- Metz, a laboratory of Abraham's brotherhood: what the common appeal of French religious communities reveals about God's plan
- Metz, or Europe rediscovered on the ruins of hatred
- When the world's clergy walks where the Pope hesitates to speak
- When a pastor lingers at the threshold: Cardinal Cantoni and the time of the passing of the torch
- Bukavu: When children carry the light that adults failed to protect
- Iraq: Work as a sacrament of the Christian presence
- Hold on until the end: Saint Lorenzo Ruiz
- Even just one of these children: what God sees when we look away
- South Africa under fire: when human life ceases to be sacred
- Hope that watches over: Leo XIV's words to the sick of Lourdes in the face of the law on assisted dying
- Saint Vincent de Paul restores a face to the poor
- The living water that sustains a multitude: what Concorde reveals about the French Catholic spring
- Our Lady risen again: when stone becomes flesh again for the Church of France
- Bakhita at the dawn of Paris: when the body of the Church reclaims its invisible members
- Metz, or the day Europe returned to pray at the tomb of its founder
- The bearer at the 30th parallel: what the beatification of Fulton Sheen reveals about the true measure of evangelization
- Kazakhstan and the Knesset, two votes, one God: what the clash of consciences over the death penalty reveals
- Kazakhstan: When the sea swallows its sons, and the state proclaims life sacred
- Stadium Night: When 80,000 young people chose to become athletes for Christ
- Leo XIV at the Stade de France: when the Pope's words resonate with the inner darkness of youth
- Wisdom versus the machine: what the Pope said at UNESCO was not a speech about AI